Are There Volcanoes in Mars? If so, what does that mean?

Close-up views of sands in the "Rocknest" taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

Going a little deeper into the study of the Martian sands, we should pay attention to the “new colors” that the Curiosity rover found in the Martian soil and their meaning.

The picture on the left shows coarse sand grains observed on a portion of the Rocknest wind drift. Mars is known as the Red Planet, but sands of Mars are not all red. According to NASA, this sample of Martian sand shows clear, translucent grains, gray sand and white sand, in addition to two blue-gray glassy spheres and a glassy ellipsoid. (The picture at right shows a magnified view of the fraction of smaller sand grains examined by Curiosity). The spherical and ellipsoidal grains were probably formed from molten droplets that cooled above the Martian surface forming glass, either during an explosive volcanic eruption or an impact cratering event. Similar grains are found in association with impacts on Earth and explosive volcanoes on the Moon. Are there volcanos in Mars? If so, what does that mean?

In the year 2010, scientists from NASA discovered “mud volcanoes” in a certain region of Mars. Mud volcanoes are geological structures in which a mixture of gas, liquid and fine-grained rock (or mud) is forced to the surface. The sediments mud volcanoes bring up might contain organic materials that could be a sign of possible past and present life. Later the scientists found there could be around 40,000 of these mud volcanoes in this area of the Red Planet. Studies like this show that there could be regions on the planet that may have be the most suitable places for life to develop. Will the Curiosity rover discover one of these key volcanoes and find the answer scientists have been looking for, or the mystery of the existence or inexistence of life in Mars will continue to the next generations?

Chemistry Group: Yaniset Fundora, Fernanda Chow, and Bianca Chavez